Why have companies like Volkswagen,
Alstom, Sanofi-Aventis, and Amazon.com
invested more than $3 billion in
Chattanooga during the worst economic
downturn in recent memory?

Last year no one in
Chattanooga's resident work force
had ever built a car. Today more
than 2,000 local workers are producing
the 2012 "Motor Trend Car
of the Year" - the all new,
Volkswagen Passat.

Transforming a work force without
automotive experience into one capable
of winning the industry's most
prestigious award with the very first
cars they have ever made - that's a dramatic
illustration of the cooperative partnership
Chattanooga establishes with companies to
ensure the success of those that invest here.

Chattanooga also supported Volkswagen
in establishing the world's first LEED Platinumcertified
auto assembly plant, while meeting
an aggressive two-and-a-half-year construction
schedule. We also helped them attract
more than 20 suppliers to the immediate area.

Home to America's Fastest Internet
and Smartest Smart Grid
Chattanooga is also grabbing national
headlines for completing America's first and only communitywide,
100 percent fiberoptic network capable of delivering up
to one gigabit per second Internet speeds to every home and
business in a 600-square-mile area. The same infrastructure is
also being used to deploy the nation's most advanced, automated,
interactive, and self-healing Smart Grid.

Thanks to this highly advanced infrastructure, Chattanooga
companies, which have always enjoyed highly reliable and costeffective
power, also have the advantage of an additional 40
percent reduction in power outage
minutes. At the same time, the
Gigabit Passive Optical Network
delivers such fast data speeds that
companies that rely on the transfer
of large amounts of data or highresolution
images are experiencing
significant productivity gains, while
allowing their employees to work
from home or distributing their work
force without missing a beat.

Assets for Office, Energy, Food and Beverage, and More
Chattanooga is the headquarters of major insurance companies
like Unum, major logistics companies like U.S. Xpress, and major
food and beverage makers like McKee Foods (Little Debbie).

Major investments by energy-sector companies like Alstom
($300 million), Westinghouse ($20 million), Schaaf Industrie,
and Wacker Chemie ($1.5 billion in neighboring Bradley
County) have established the area as a major force for that
industry. Being home to TVA's power control headquarters also
gives Chattanooga-based energy companies added synergies.

Chattanooga's advanced telecommunications and data infrastructure
has helped create nearly 1,000 new customer service
and data center jobs in the last three years, including the 140-
seat HomeServe Customer Care Center. In announcing its
investment, HomeServe officials said that Chattanooga's data
and technology solutions were the deciding factor.

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis has also recently
invested in the area through the acquisition of Chattanooga-based
Chattem for $2 billion. Chattem - which is a maker and marketer
of over-the-counter health and beauty products like ACT mouthwash,
Flexall, and Goldbond - served as Sanofi-Aventis' point of
entry into the American market through the highly successful
launch of Allegra as an over-the-counter medication this past year.

Your Information Source
The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce serves as
the economic development organization for Chattanooga and
Hamilton County. We offer full site selection services including
RFI response, coordinating community visits, assistance with
identifying potential sites, incentives negotiation, and project
management. Contact us for more information.